Category — Countries

For the last decade, the FOOD programme has been actively acting in the promotion of healthier eating habits during the working day. Its actions of communication and sensitisation campaigns have reached 5,4 million employees and 475 000 restaurants in nine member states (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Portugal).

In the past years, healthy eating promotion has grown in importance. Obesity kills more than under nutrition and the need for action is higher. All organisations and countries have a role to play.

In that perspective, the FOOD programme partners are glad to welcome Romania as the 10th country in its consortium. The Romanian National Institute of Public Health (INSP) indeed joined forces with Edenred Romania in order to address the negative impact of unhealthy lifestyle habits and the risk factors resulting from it.

The INSP becomes the 28th FOOD partner, alongside with the other Public Health Authorities, Research centres, Nutritionists, and Universities.

The Romanian partners adopted the EU FOOD recommendations and took care to adjust it to the national context. The recommendations are designed to raise awareness about healthy eating amongst the the two target groups: employees and restaurants.

The recommendations aim to change not only the content of the food eaten, its cooking method, but also the quantities offered.

For instance, Romanian FOOD restaurants will commit to:

Frequently offer a dish without meat,

Use vegetable oils as the main fat for cooking,

Use a low amount of salt when cooking…

Alongside, employees will be incited to pay attention to the following recommendations:

Prefer water instead of sweetened drinks,

Pay attention to the serving portion, and get up from the table before you are too full,

Reduce bread consumption and prefer whole wheat bread…

The FOOD programme draws its strength from the varied and the complementary skills of its partners, that enable a fruitful and long-lasting cooperation. This new partnership with Romania forecasts interesting further developments and actions.

In its June 2016 Public Health Panorama, the WHO Europe published an article about the Portuguese National Programme for the Promotion of Healthy Eating (PNPAS), analysing the first years of its implementation and providing recommendations for the years to come. It was co-written by Pedro Graça, Director of this programme at the Portuguese Ministry of Health (Direcção-Geral de Saúde), which is a member of the FOOD programme. Launched in 2012, it is the first comprehensive national strategy in the field of food and nutrition in Portugal. It follows the strategic lines suggested by the WHO and the European Commission.

The PNPAS aims at addressing the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that contribute to 85% of the total burden of disease in Portugal according to the Global Burden of Disease Study (2010). In 2014, more than half of Portuguese adults were overweight or obese (National Health Survey).

The report summarises the main actions led under this programme – specific surveys and studies, actions in schools for obesity prevention, awareness campaigns over healthy eating, specific training for professionals that can influence people’s eating habits, networking facilitation between involved actors, etc. – and draws recommendations for the years to come. Among others, the authors emphasise in their conclusion the need for a “broad multisectoral approach in order to establish alliances and partnerships among the different government sectors, the private sector and civil society”, considered as “one of the main challenges of food and nutrition policies, especially in Portugal, where integrated policies are not common”. Plus, in order to monitor and evaluate the policies implemented, the report stresses the importance of collecting data and improving the quality of indicators.

The FOOD programme is a very good example of a public-private partnership fostering healthy eating habits and therefore contributing to state policies’ objectives such as the PNPAS in Portugal. The barometers that are launched every year are a valuable source of information on employees’ eating habits and their evolving expectations.